Explore
by Dark Ice Dragon
Summary: Something bothered M-21 about Frankenstein's house.


**Summary**: Something bothered M-21 about Frankenstein's house.

Set soon after M-21 moves in with Frankenstein and Rai.

Written for lucathia_rykatu as a yuletide treat

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**Explore**

By Dark Ice Dragon

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Something bothered M-21 about Frankenstein's house. It was very spacious, yes, but M-21 just felt that there was still more to it.

One day, while Rai was out with Shinwoo and Frankenstein seemed to have disappeared also, M-21 decided to explore the house properly. He hadn't really done that before; the most amount of investigating he'd done was only to search for the toilet, everything else being provided for him. That also set him on edge, because when things were given to him, the person wanted something back in return. So what did Frankenstein and Rai want from him?

The house _was_ a lot larger than he anticipated, there being even more bedrooms that he hadn't known about. And while M-21's room was bigger than he had ever been used to, it wasn't significantly smaller than Rai's or Frankenstein's room either. He _assumed_ one of them had been Rai's room – it had about as much personality as his own, but the rows of clothes in the scarily huge cupboard pointed the occupant to be Rai.

Going upstairs revealed even _more_ bedrooms, all identical, all without a speck of dust to speak of (although, this _was_ Frankenstein's house, so he shouldn't be that surprised by that). He investigated them, one-by-one, touching and tapping the walls, doing the same for the cupboard. He tried looking behind the paintings, and pulling the furniture away from the walls, but there wasn't anything there, no flashing panels, no door-shaped cracks, no hollow sounding walls.

The cupboards in the hall were the same, devoid of anything sinister, and all smelling faintly of apples. A quick search revealed the air-freshener tucked away in the corner. The toilet was, naturally, completely spotless and sparkling, but there was nothing else in there to suggest that it was used as a gateway to somewhere else.

M-21 went down the stairs, musing quietly to himself. There didn't seem to be anything hidden in the house and… His eyes flicked to an open door, one that he was sure that he'd seen, but he hadn't looked in to. It hadn't been open when he'd passed by it before. He wasn't sure why he hadn't opened it, and his stomach filled with dread when he saw that it was a staircase, leading down, the passage brightly lit.

He couldn't hear anything from where the staircase led to, and he cautiously made his way down, stopping every time he accidently made too much noise, waiting to see if that had tripped an alarm, or someone down there heard him. Nothing happened, so he continued.

Eventually, he reached the end of the stairs and M-21 stared up at the massive set of doors that were standing imposingly in front of him, his heart racing. The doors opened with a quiet hydraulic hiss, one that could barely be heard, and after a second of sheer wide-eyed panic, M-21 threw himself beside them to hide himself before he was revealed.

Trying to keep his breathing quiet, he listened carefully for anything inside the room, but he couldn't hear anything. No talking, no moving, no machinery beeping either. The door stayed open, and after a minute, M-21 poked his head around it, and felt like his heart had stopped beating.

Inside was a laboratory. It looked like the entire floor was maybe even bigger than the house, everything shiny and new. Taking a deep, silent breath, M-21 snuck in, skirting the edges of the room. He didn't know a lot of the instruments in the room, but he did at least recognise the scanner by the far-off wall.

The place _didn't_ stink of fear and sweat, which comforted M-21 a little, but it made him wonder if it had only just been set up, if he was going to be the first one to be experimented on here. It would explain why there were so many rooms upstairs.

There was a thick cylinder that M-21 passed by, and he realised that he could hear it humming - a low sound, but it was constant. He paused, staring at it. What was it doing? There weren't any buttons on it, no panels on it either.

"Ah, M-21, _there_ you are."

He whirled around, flinching, not knowing how Frankenstein had snuck up behind him; he hadn't been _that_ distracted by the cylinder and the tiled flooring should have announced Frankenstein's presence before he'd gotten so close.

Frankenstein smiled at him. "I was wondering if you could help me with something?"

M-21 watched him as Frankenstein walked around him, towards the cylinder, and M-21 backed away carefully, not answering his question, wary about what it would entail if he agreed.

He wasn't sure what Frankenstein did –his hands were outside his pockets, and he didn't touch the cylinder- but the cylinder opened, white steam billowing out of it.

Apprehensively, M-21 watched as the smoke cleared, not knowing what to expect. He couldn't place the smell that was coming from it either – it wasn't anything he had ever encountered. When the smoke finally stopped obscuring his view, he stared at what was in front of him.

…Gwapyeon?

Frankenstein tested the tray they were on with a finger, before nodding to himself and then turning his head towards M-21. "Can you eat these and tell me what you think of the taste?"

All _this_ was for the sake of making food?

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Frankenstein was smiling at him the next day, an edge of his lip twitching. M-21's heart sank and his mind raced to figure out what he was annoyed about.

"Were you upstairs yesterday?"

He nodded, trying to figure out what was wrong from that hint. He'd put everything back in its proper place, so how did Frankenstein_know_? The carpets were also clean and springy, so he hadn't left any footprints either.

M-21 could feel a trickle of sweat run down the back of his neck. What would Frankenstein do to him? M-21 hadn't been told not to go up there, but then, he hadn't been told that he was allowed to go upstairs either, and sometimes, the scientists had felt that was enough of a guideline to follow. Since when had M-21 started to fail in picking those unsaid rules?

"Ah, that would explain why everything was out of order." Frankenstein smiled at him again, more naturally and with less annoyance, and then turned away, humming under his breath.

M-21 stared at his back, his eyes wide. It was going to take some time before he was used to living with Frankenstein and Rai.

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Gwapyeon is a sweet that's made out of fruits.


End file.
